My Arkansas Arts Council portfolio is a work of mail art, called "Have A Heckuva Day at Dogpatch USA!"
One of America’s best known artists, Al Capp the cartoonist, came to Arkansas to recreate the Li’l Abner cartoon strip in Newton County, specifically Marble Falls. The amusement park was called Dogpatch, named after the fictional cartoon strip home to Li’l Abner, Daisy Mae, Pappy Yokum, The Shmoo, Fearless Fosdick and many other characters.
Capp and his investors started with a great idea, but a terrible business plan which included a mountain of snow and ski lift for a rural people who had never seen snow skis. Ground breaking was 1967 and bankruptcy came in 1980.
The images in this portfolio, “Arkansas Momentos”, are oversized postcards (aluminum, 16x20 inches) that were mailed to the cartoonist’s residence. The trip through the postal system is in itself a story, and the mail-worn Arkansas Momentos were subsequently on exhibit at the Lunder Arts Center in Cambridge MA in June, 2017.